In the 510 remaining respondents, there was no difference between groups’ calculated optimal treatment preferences (Table 2). In the conventional group, the calculations suggested that respondents

should prefer MAS more than they indicated (51% vs 41%) and should prefer no treatment less (18% vs 29%). In the conventional group, 70% of respondents chose the option that was calculated to be optimal. In the recency group, this was improved to 78% (OR (95% CI): 1.43 (0.88, 2.32), p = 0.15), and in the primacy group, Selleckchem Linsitinib this was improved to 90% (OR (95% CI): 3.88 (2.10, 7.20), p < 0.001) ( Table 2). Fig. 2 shows the proportion of respondents with concordant choices by age and education. The impact of primacy effects on concordance is significantly higher in younger people than in older people (OR (95% CI): 8.05

(2.93, 22.13) vs 2.09 (0.92, 4.74), p = 0.042). A small non-significant trend was identified with higher educated respondents being slightly more concordant than lower educated respondents. Decisional conflict in the clarity of values and uncertainty subscales was high for all groups. While the scores were lower in both ordered groups, this was not by statistically significant difference (Table 3). This study identified that individuals are more likely to make treatment choices that reflect their values when the information presented in a PtDA is ordered according to their informed preferences. We found a significant selleck products primacy effect whereby respondents were more likely to choose the treatment option calculated to be best for them if they were presented first with information about

the attributes they felt were personally important. This effect was identified to be most prominent in younger individuals. An interesting finding was that primacy, rather than recency, effects had a greater influence on decisions. Primacy effects occur since items early in a list have a memory advantage. This advantage is due to the first items in a list having less competition for limited memory capacity [24]. Existing research suggests that position effects extend beyond memory and may influence actual behaviour. For example, subjects tended to view Amrubicin and choose ads in the Yellow Pages that were at the top of the alphabetical list [13] and choose candidates listed at the top of electoral ballots [25]. Research in economics points to a warm (or fading) glow effect in the way information influences people’s values [26], which can go on to influence peoples choices [27] and [28]. There is limited evidence on the influence of order effects in the design of health education materials, despite a recognition that such cognitive biases can impact people’s ability to process content-related information [29].